This past Saturday, the men’s and women’s track teams hosted their third consecutive meet. The men easily took first place while the women finished as runner-ups for the second consecutive week.
Men
The men came out on top against the tough competition of Tufts, Colby, University of Southern Maine (USM), Coast Guard and St. Joseph’s. They took first place with 174 points, beating second-place Tufts by 17 and third-place Coast Guard by an even 40.
Senior captains Sam Seekins and Coby Horowitz led the team by combining for 30 points. 20 of those came from Horowitz, who won both the 1000-meter and one-mile events. The All-American also won the mile run last weekend, but this week switched his second event from the 3000-meter run to the 1000. Even though he ran the mile first, he said the new race may have been the reason for his mile being about 10 seconds slower this week, up from 4:11 to 4:21.
“The mile is first, but it’s always in the back of your head that you have another race. I think I ended up taking the mile a little easier than I normally would have,” said Horowitz. “Getting ready to run the 1000 gets me ready for the rest of the season, when I’ll be running two races a meet.”
Head Coach Peter Slovenski agreed, mentioning that he applied the same strategy when coaching most of his runners.
“Whatever their prime race is, we like to enter people in races both longer and shorter,” said Slovenski, who is coaching for his 28th season.
Slovenski mentioned that in one 5000-meter race this past weekend, first years Ryan Barrett and Bridger Tomlin, Nick Walker ’16 and John Izzo ’15 all ran personal bests. The Polar Bears’ throwers did similarly well, with juniors Anthony Todesco and Cam Woodford and sophomores Ben Woo Ching and Cam Chisholm all setting personal records.
Parker Hayes ’17 had another star performance at the meet. The first year won his heat in the 60-meter hurdles and then placed second in the finals behind an All-American from Coast Guard.
The team will host the Maine State Meet at 6 p.m. tomorrow.
Women
The women finished just eight points back from Tufts, which was victorious with 152 points.
Lucy Skinner ’16 led the way for Bowdoin, winning both her events to score 20 of Bowdoin’s 144 points. Her mile time, 5:11, was six seconds ahead of second, and in the 1000-meter run she finished three seconds ahead of the next fastest finisher with a time of 3:06.
She was backed by teammates Addison Carvajal ’16 and Hayleigh Kein ’15, who finished first and third in the high jump, respectively. In the long jump, the Polar Bears took second and fourth, with Carvajal again placing second and Katharine Krupp ’16 taking fourth.
Krupp also won the triple jump with a distance of 10.91 meters.
Meghan Bellerose ’17 had quite the performance as well, winning the 600-meter run with a time of 1:40 after narrowly missing first in the 800 meter last week.
In the throwing events, the Polar Bears saw a strong performance from senior Katherine Harmon, who took first place in the weight throw event. Randi London ’15 was not far behind in fourth place.
“We’re getting a strong foundation of scoring in the field events,” said Slovenski. “Our throwers and jumpers are ready for the championship season.”
With the aforementioned championship season kicking off at the Maine State Meet in two weeks, the team will look to continue to improve this weekend as it travels to the Tufts Invitational.